


cigarettes and handcuffs

by llgf



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Bounty Hunters, Eventual Smut, F/M, Las Vegas, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2018-09-27 18:38:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10038836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llgf/pseuds/llgf
Summary: Cassian Andor looks at the picture like it's a painting he needs to dissect.Jyn Erso is throwing cards and money when she feels a shadow above her. She runs.Cassian is paid to find and bring Jyn Erso to Mexico. Things don't go as planned.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to [garglyswoof](http://archiveofourown.org/users/garglyswoof/pseuds/garglyswoof) and [ accidental-rambler ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/accidentalrambler/pseuds/accidentalrambler) for their beta work and for their help me with my writing and for being amazing!
> 
> It's the first time I write for the star wars fandom, and it's an AU, so please tell me what you think!

**21:12, 04/09**

A mugshot with a false name.

He looks at the image behind a layer of smoke. It’s imprinted in his brain somehow, after the long miles in the desert spent driving, smoking, and looking at the picture on the dashboard – her lips are irregular, her bangs hide half her face. It’s just like smoke: a gradient of black and white and the same ghostly passenger. 

He finds himself talking to the picture sometimes. 

The picture is a memory now, you can’t see the rigidity of the photo once you've seen the curves of reality. 

There is more color on her cheeks, now that she is next to him, but perhaps not as much as he would have thought. The picture had been peculiar, unexpected – she looked too young, too wise, perhaps. She simply didn’t look like a rebel, not like someone who could pop up in his mail box with a reward.

Maybe it’s only the picture. She looks more brutal in color; her makeup is smudged, remnants of black framing her green eyes and some red on her lips – a warrior. 

(Did he imagine a smiling girl wearing a yellow dress? He didn’t, he simply imagined something else.)

Unlike the picture, she’s not immobile. She’s fierce and fighting against her handcuffs, emphasizing her gestures with colorful words. “How do you say in Spanish? Hijo de puta?”

The tilt of her accent makes it almost hilarious.

He looks at the flickering light of the motel sign, then at the drops of water on the seat; then a brief glance in the rearview mirror to look at her.  _ Jyn Erso.  _

When he sees her looking back, he focuses his gaze on himself and his swelling nose.  

* * *

**19:47, 04/09** , Cassian reads on his phone. He throws away his cigarette and looks up.

Vegas, written in neon lights and false promises; that’s where he finds her. Glittery dress and red lipstick, fake smile and white shark teeth, throwing cards and money around but still relatively discreet for a winner. 

He doesn’t know if she sees him or the security first, but she starts running, fast, her black boots taking her anywhere but here. 

She takes a sharp turn, a gaming chip falls, and she escapes the men in black, but not Cassian. He opens the exit door, unable to say a word before he finds himself on the cold hard ground, his bloody nose ringing. “Puta madre!” he curses, before he looks at her silhouette escaping him, running towards the too bright lights of Vegas. He tries to follow, to run after her but he only sees a flash of legs diving into a red car. 

Cassian hates this city, its artificial lights, its half-naked bodies and its fake money and promises, he’s been here too many times, it’s just an empty town full of lost people. Like her. Like him.

She is just a contract he needs to fulfill, but she’s an infuriating one. 

Cassian follows the red car fumbling through the streets like an angry bull. He keeps his distance and parks farther away from where she stops. 

It’s in a cheap motel in the edge of town, where he finds her again. The red car she stole sits alone in the deserted parking lot, like a ruined statue in an abandoned museum; and it  _ is  _ ruined, she hasn’t been delicate, there’s a broken window and yellow dust everywhere. 

Cassian grabs his packet – it’s crumpled, the cigarettes are crooked, he should put it elsewhere than in his back pocket – taking a moment to let her believe she can flee. Confidence makes people make mistakes, Cassian believes. He checks the bullets in his gun. He knows he won’t use it, and he hesitates to bring it with him – fear makes people react unpredictably. 

He puts the gun in his holster on his side, throws his cigarette and steps on it, makes a finger gun pointing at her silhouette and shoots. 

Jyn looks at the lights, the dark sky, and her distorted feet in the blue – too blue – water, clutching the little bag full of gaming chips in her lap. Her impulsivity has run its course, and like all things it must die. So she dips her feet in the water and she waits. 

Waits for something, anything, to make her get up and leave again. 

(Where? Los Angeles, maybe, or Vancouver, why not?)

When she feels the water between her toes she realizes how tired she is of running all the time. 

It’s like being prey. Does prey in the savanna or in the jungle always hear alarms? Because there’s this  _ constant  _ noise, especially here in Vegas.

When she was younger, Jyn used to lie down on the grass catching a few seconds of complete silence before the birds started singing again, before she started running away from the wind. It’s impossible now. Not only in Vegas, but everywhere she wanders – there’s always noise following her, because of whatever marching band installed in her mind. 

The wind is gone. 

He tries to be silent. He has this walk, soft, cautious, instinctive; she feels like there is a shadow hovering her, and she senses him even before the drop of red falls in the fluorescent blue. 

“I am going to ask you to follow me.”

That’s when she notes the accent. 

“I should have hit you harder,” she answers. 

There’s still a stripe of blood descending towards his mouth, and as she says the words, he brings his fingers to his still ringing nose – his fingers are coated in red. 

Running away now would be careless, she needs to paralyze him first, Jyn thinks. It’s more than a thought, even; she grabs his jeans and pushes him into the water, taking advantage of it to start running, the tokens and lights forgotten. 

There’s a deafening sound as the skin of her chin breaks and her jaw shuts in a painful slap; she’s running out of air, her chin coloring the water in red. The violence of the fall paralyzes her, gulps of water filling her mouth and throat until she feels something pulling her away. 

* * *

Cassian groans as he tries to comb his wet hair with his fingers, the drops falling on the leather seats of his car. It smells like chlorine, and pine from the little green tree hanging on the rearview mirror.

Jyn, on the back seat, is still coughing because of her burning lungs. She can’t move, but she keeps struggling, like a fish out of the water – there isn’t an ocean big enough for Jyn, she’s always been a bit out of everything – she hates this feeling. The metal around her wrist is biting the skin, a painful reminder that she’s been caught,  _ again _ , her hair is getting in her eyes, and she still tastes blood in her mouth. She is groaning, kicking the seats, but he stays silent. She curses him, whoever he might be, but she mostly blames herself even as the gears turn in her mind to come up with an escape plan. 

Cassian lights up a cigarette – from another packet, since his last one is completely wet and ruined – ignoring her complaints, the vipers slithering out of her mouth to strike. Jyn starts hammering the window with her bare feet, so Cassian turns the radio up to cover it. It’s a country song. 

“How do you say in Spanish? Hijo de puta?”

In the glove compartment, he hides her pictures away – among ammo, more cigarettes, an audio cassette, gum and a prayer card of Anima Sola – and grabs a small first aid kit.

She’s stopped.

He doesn’t start the engine yet, Jyn sees him looking at his reflection in the mirror. He hisses when he touches his nose – it’s not broken, but it’s enough to make Jyn smile. 

“Where are you taking me?” she asks. Her voice seems so close, it feels like she is whispering in his ear. 

“Mexico.”

Jyn nods. She doesn’t even try to guess what he wants her for now, there’s always been a target on her back anyway. She’s tried to cover it with a suit jacket, a white dress and a pearl necklace, in vain. It was still grotesquely obvious. 

“You’re bleeding,” Cassian says, looking at her through the mirror, “your chin,” motioning with an unlit cigarette between his lips. 

Jyn notices the drops staining the awful dress she is wearing, and how her jaw still hurts, but she just nods. She’s been hurt before, her blood is a color she wears often. 

Cassian sighs and recognizes a stubbornness in her passivity, takes the aid kit and opens the door to slide on the back seat with her. Jyn backs off as best as she can and Cassian shows his hand in an almost vulgar peaceful manner, as if he was drawing a gun – she can see his holster, and that’s what frightens her, that  _ she can see it _ . 

“What – “

Cassian slowly grabs her neck, his thumb caressing her jaw to make her lift her chin and to keep her from hitting him, knowing what she can do with her fists, he doesn’t want to find out what she can do with that stubborn head. “I won’t hurt you.” 

It makes her scoff, because if he wanted to kill her he would have done it by now, he’s already had plenty of chances – a bullet in her head, her dead body in the fluorescent water – but his hand on her neck tells her that he’s used to trying. 

And she grits her teeth – so hard it makes her skull buzz – but she lets him clean her cut with a compress that smells a lot like tequila, and put a butterfly stitch on her chin. That’s when she notices his eyes, tired and warm and completely focused. Dangerous eyes. 

Jyn looks at him, doesn’t thank him – why would she?

Cassian smirks, trying to read her face; her light frown, her lips in a thin line - she doesn’t want to give too much, he can tell. 

* * *

He’s been driving for an hour now. The road hasn’t changed. Jyn counts her breaths, and keeps a list in her mind: road 93, she notes.

She is usually not an observer, Jyn. She listens, she feels, but she keeps her head down, she knows how to be discreet. But here – she notes how he taps on the wheel to the rhythm of a few songs, she counts the number of cigarettes he smokes (12), the cacti by the roadside (32), as if all these details were crucial.

(And they may be, those marks of the time passing by, the minutes, hours she loses, like wrinkles in the corner of her eyes.)

He has looked in the mirror 23 times since he started the engine, briefly and regularly, like a watch. (Tick tock.) He is watching her. 

_ Kick him and flee _ , she repeats in her head. She is going to wait, for the right time, for an opportunity. Like she always does. 

She’s going to watch him too. 

Cassian has his gaze fixed on the everlasting, straight, yellowish road, like some kind of old postcard he would rather forget, because remembering’s when you miss whatever you’ve left at  _ home.  _ Every minute, he gazes at the rearview mirror and at his disturbingly quiet passenger. 

He notices the mood changing when she starts looking back. Vultures have the same gaze. 

Jyn looks at the curve of his neck, as if the answers are written there in cursive, but she only finds questions. Among them, one that makes her lips itch: “Why?”

She scolds herself for asking, for even wanting an answer, but she’s been left alone in her own thoughts for too long, they were starting to get obnoxious. 

Cassian takes a peek at the rearview mirror, a raised eyebrow feigning confusion, “Why?” he repeats. 

“Why Mexico? What did I do?”

“I don’t know what you did.” Cassian shrugs, half-lying. She does have a full criminal record, but that's not why she's here. But it’s not his job anymore, to investigate and answer questions, now he just delivers. 

Jyn opens her mouth to protest but – “Whatever,” she whispers, gritting her teeth and drifting her gaze away to look at the yellow outside. (It’s something Saw hated, when she simply dismissed the conversation, maybe that’s why it’s become a habit.)

He lights up another cigarette, pinching the filter between his lips, “I was paid,” he starts, takes a drag, “to bring you to Mexico, to someone named Krennic.”

Jyn just nods. She doesn’t know the name, she still doesn’t have the answers she was looking for, and her throat is burning. 

“I’m thirsty.” She makes her voice tilt higher, unconsciously, but she wants to talk, she wants him to be troubled by her presence, just like she’s troubled by the metal around her wrists. She wants to bug him like some insect near his ear.

Cassian keeps his eyes on the road all the while rummaging through a bag on the seat next to him. He throws a water bottle behind him, gruff and annoyed. “Here.”

Jyn looks at the bottle, then at the holster, at the gun.   

“I can’t use my hands.”

_ Shrug _ . He can be an annoying brat, too.

* * *

She's already broken her thumb. The first time and the most painful was when she was 7 years old, all braids and dirty knees. She was running and a bad step made her fall to the ground; a crack, one of a bone, the other, a tooth on the floor.

But it was only the first time –  there had been others. Her right thumb has never really healed, and she can hear the bone pop when she moves it.

(She often makes it snap when she’s with Chirrut and Baze, mostly because the former hates the sound.)

But it allows her to bend it at an almost inhuman angle.

It's been 20 minutes since she got rid of the handcuffs, but Jyn keeps her hands behind her back because she can still see his holster and the shining metal of his gun.

Cassian rolls the sleeves of his shirt and Jyn sees the veins, the muscles of a shooter.

So she keeps her hands behind her back, does not take a sip of water.

And Jyn waits and looks at the water swaying. 

* * *

Jyn looks at him now, wondering if it would be better to hit his temple or the back of his head. Either way, the car would get stuck in the sand of the side road and she would have time to run away.

Running in the desert? Stupid. 

There’s a nagging voice saying that it doesn’t really matter anyway, that she should just stay still and wait. 

“So what do you think you did?” he suddenly asks, turning his head briefly to meet her eyes. Jyn hates how soft it sounds. 

“I don’t know.”

* * *

“No mames!” Cassian curses (Jyn guesses it’s a curse) and gazes at the red light on the dashboard.

He murmurs something, again and again, and there’s the regular click of the blinkers. 

Next thing Jyn adds to her list is that they turn right. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He takes the time to check his gun, the bullets, and puts it back in his holster. He covers it with a Hawaiian shirt, just enough that she can still see the shape of it. Jyn feels like it’s deliberate, a warning of a sort directed at her.
> 
> He can subtly threaten her all he wants, all she thinks about is the handcuffs gliding off her wrists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to [garglyswoof](http://archiveofourown.org/users/garglyswoof/pseuds/garglyswoof) for her beta work!

Cassian stops at a gas station - the first he’s found, really, and it almost looks like the desert is eating it. There’s sand everywhere, plants growing through the cement, and the red paint is so old it’s become a gradient of orange and pink. But there’s -GAS- painted on the columns, and that’s enough for Cassian.

He takes the time to check his gun, the bullets, and puts it back in his holster. He covers it with a Hawaiian shirt, just enough that she can still see the shape of it. Jyn feels like it’s deliberate, a warning of a sort directed at her.

He can subtly threaten her all he wants, all she thinks about is the handcuffs gliding off her wrists.

She doesn’t move, she doesn’t even look at him while he fills the car with gas. If she had, she would have seen his floral shirt, flapping against the window, just enough for her to see his gun.

Don’t do anything stupid.

But Jyn has done many many stupid things, some useful, some not. This is survival. There’s no stupidity when you want to save your own skin and he can’t kill her anyway.

When he’s done, he goes to the cashier with a gruff expression. She’s a ticking bomb, and he knows it.

He disappears behind the doors, and Jyn jumps in the driver’s seat.She sends her regards to Saw Gerrera, a little prayer towards the sky, while she rummages through wires and gears. 

Saw had a thing for yellow cars. She didn’t know why, but they were his favorite target. He stole them - or someone did it for him - only to resell them. He’d never taught her how to hotwire a car, but he might as well have, because he’d fed her curiosity. She can see herself back in the library, looking at a tutorial - “How to Steal Cars”. 

And she can see herself using what she’d learned for the first time. 

_ They were looking at projected pictures of bones and muscles. “This is the femur,” a soporific voice added. A click, another picture. “These are the metatarsals.”  _

_ Drawing a house she could never get in, Jyn wasn’t looking, she wasn’t even listening. If the doodles she made could talk they would probably beg her to leave. Or they would tell her to break Josh’s metatarsals.  _

_ Josh was a loud, fat boy who’d rather stick gum in this girl’s hair than miss another opportunity to make his friends laugh. His round cheeks accentuated by a paltry smile, he and his friends puffed proudly.  _

_ Everybody hated Josh. Hence why everybody wanted to be him.  _

_ He was throwing gum in this girl’s hair.  _

_ Jyn was no hero, she didn’t pretend to be, but breaking his car’s window, starting the engine with a simple flick of her wrist and some sparks, had felt incredibly heroic. She had laughed because it was forbidden; because it was wrong, enjoying the wind in her hair in the windowless car.  _

_ She’d come home, walking through the wheat field with corn in her shoes. Leaving the car in the vast field like a corpse was the approval she’d never get.  _

_ The little bag of weed she stole, hidden in the glove box of Josh’s car, however, was the last disapproval that would get her tossed out of another foster family’s house. _

She doesn’t have corn in her shoes right now. She has two wires in her hand and there are sparks, “Come on!” she wants to scream, as if it could make the engine roar. 

She doesn’t want to raise her head, at the risk of seeing him, like a child who is hiding, thinking that if she does not see him, then he can’t see her either.

But he does see her and curses and squeezes the handle of his gun, taking great strides towards the red car and the hidden girl.

Jyn raises her head, an insult on her lips when she sees Cassian running towards her, and another when she sees the cashier pulling a rifle from behind the counter.

He must have seen Cassian’s gun. 

"Get the fuck out of here!" he yells, aiming at Cassian's back.

A flick of the wrist, and the car growls, but Cassian opens the door at the same time.

"Go!" He screams at her. A shot near the tires makes her jump and press on the accelerator harder, the “go go go” of her kidnapper like encouragement for a contestant who is losing.

The tires screech and they're on the road again. 

Cassian curses again, panting. 

Jyn keeps her foot on the accelerator, in a frenzy, her clammy hands on the steering wheel. She’s trying to think about what to do because her plan did not involve him being in the car. 

“They don’t want guns when they're not theirs, right?” 

She doesn't know if he tries to make a joke to lighten up the heavy mood, but this act doesn't impress her. Jyn doesn't answer, she doesn't even take a look at him. 

“Are you okay?” he asks. 

Jyn huffs in response. She wants to punch his face. She wants to drive right into the desert, like she did in the cornfield, drive into a cactus and flee. But again, running in the desert? Stupid.

She still might have, if he hadn’t handcuffed her hand to the steering wheel, using the shackle already on her wrist. 

He brushes her wrist in an attempt to reassure her, but he’s only reassuring himself, “I am being cautious.” 

“I can still drive into a cactus - “

“You can. That would be reckless. But you can. I can’t stop you, you’re the one driving.” He flicks a cigarette, rolls down the window an inch. “It’ll end up with us, in the middle of the desert, stuck in a car under a hard sun. We’ll fry like lizards.” He takes a drag and carefully blows the smoke out, “Or you can break another thumb and fry while walking.”

He looks at her with a smile, Jyn could see herself smiling back at him, and it makes her skin crawl, because as far she knows, he’s the villain in this story. She’s careful to look at him only with disgust and repulsion. 

He looks like he’s  _ trying  _ though, his jaw is clenched most of the time, and his eyes are hooded and dark. Maybe he’s doing it against his consent, maybe he hates this job, perhaps he doesn’t even believe he’s a bad guy, but do villains know they are villains? 

Virtuous is probably not a quality you need for this job. 

Jyn thinks about too many things, about what to do. It clogs her mind, she can’t think straight, she drives on the white markings on the road. She tries to understand what she's gotten into. He doesn’t look like a villain, and maybe she’s read too many comics and books, because villains don’t have soft and tired eyes. Still, she's careful. But right now, she's just a dog chasing its own tail, driving in the middle of the desert right into the dark. 

She also realises she doesn’t even know his name. She doesn’t even know if she wants to. Putting a name on things is a curse. It starts with your doll, then your friends, your foster parents, you idealize them, until they find a bag of weed and kick you out. She doesn't need to know his name because she doesn't need to care. 

“Tell me why,” she tries once again, because her own survival is the only thing she cares about, and these questions are taking too much place in her mind.

“I told you, I've been paid to find you.”

“Why?” she repeats slowly. 

“A certain Krennic needs you,” he answers. She knows that, and Jyn grits her teeth. 

He brings a cigarette to his mouth, trying to seem unphased, but he doesn't look relaxed, he's pinching the filter. 

“And?”

He just shrugs. 

Jyn takes a sharp turn, driving in the sand, cloud of yellow dust flowing around them. 

“Stop!” he screams, holding the door. 

“Tell me!”

A loud screech rings in her ear, the car is turning violently, she has to stop her head from hitting the steering wheel. The right tires don't touch the ground for a second, but the car finally settles. She doesn't know what happened, she's squinting her eyes at the pain. Maybe she’d really hit a cactus. 

Cassian's hand is on the brake, he's panting loudly and his jaw is clenched. Without a second look, he goes out and turns around the car, the red disappearing under yellow dust. 

“ _ ¡Mi coche! _ ” yells Cassian, a hand in his hair. He's mumbling something in Spanish again, and it sounds accusing. 

There's smoke coming out of the car and Jyn's proud of herself, but she’s just created another problem, and still no solution. 

She massages her neck with her free hand. She should have thought about the next part of the plan, because she's stuck in this car that feels more like an oven, and even if she gets out, she's still in the middle of nowhere. 

Cassian opens the door to the back seat and grabs the bottle, taking a big gulp and cleaning his mouth with his wrist. 

Jyn has nothing else to do, or think, so she just watches him move frantically around the car until she uses a bobby pin, hidden in her bun, and easily enough, Jyn gets rid of the handcuffs and gets out, her numb legs begging to walk. 

She wants to leave the car, the man in the desert; she takes three, then four steps away. But there’s no shadow here, Jyn thinks, the sun is burning her neck, and the horizon is the same wherever she looks. There’s nowhere to go. 

So she turns around. “What does this Krennic want?”

Cassian is rubbing his face tiredly, sitting on the car hood. He doesn't look defeated, he just looks exhausted and not nearly as confident as before. Jyn could flee, he probably won’t stop her, but curiosity is eating at her, she has always managed to slip through the net but he’d managed to get her. 

“Something about needing you to find someone.” He's looking at his feet, playing with pebbles, he seems deep in thought. 

“Who?” she tries to force the words out of his mouth, because since the beginning, a piece has been missing. 

He's biting his tongue, avoiding her gaze. He knows something, another detail that'll clear the picture. 

Jyn takes a step forward determinedly to grab his gun from his holster. He's threatened her before, she can point a gun at him too. 

But Cassian’s too fast and he grabs her wrist when her fingers curl around the handle. He's warning her with his eyes and clenched jaw. He doesn't let her go, and she's not leaving either. 

“Who?” she asks with gritted teeth, her face closer to him than it ever was before. 

Cassian thinks, hard enough for his breath to whistle. His gaze is fixed on hers. They both realize that neither of them are ready to let go of the gun. 

This job is a mess, his pockets are full of sand instead of being full of dollars, and this girl has planted her nails in his skin too deep. Maybe that's why he says it, but there's still surprise in his voice when he pronounces the word, “family” because it's too big of a clue. 

Jyn gulps and lets go. She only has one person in her family left. 

She hasn't seen her dad in years. She has a lot of postcards from him, from all over the world, heavenly pictures of smiling people with a mountainous landscape overly saturated, and an  _ I love you stardust.  _

They're all in her flat somewhere. 

He’d just left when she was younger, leaving her with an “I do it for you” in her ear. Now, she doesn't even remember his voice and his words are worn out. 

But she knows what he does, she knows what he is, but not  _ where  _ he is. 

Drugs. 

His brilliant mind had invented a powerful psychotropic drug. Expensive and rare, its creator a gold mine. 

It's not the first time someone is after her because of him. 

She kicks the dust underneath her boots, and that's all the reaction she'll allow herself to have. She’s learned to compose herself over the years. She might be impulsive and a wanderer, but she doesn't burst out like a wildfire. 

Jyn looks around and tries to think about what to do. 

Cassian has his gun in his hands, he's emptying the bullets and putting them in his pocket. He could have threatened her with it, took advantage of her surprise, but it feels wrong. 

She could start walking, but night will soon cool down the desert. She doesn't have food, water or money. 

“How much?” she suddenly asks. 

“What?” he looks at her with frowning eyebrows, perhaps at the foolishness of her words. 

“Krennic? How much did he promise you?”

Cassian looks at her, his lips in a thin line. He studies her, and she can hear the wind battling with the sand before he huffs. If it's defeat she hears, or even compliance, it makes Jyn smirk. 

“Ten thousand dollars.”

_ Shit _ . That’s a lot of zeroes, and Jyn can’t help but look at her boots that cost her fifty dollars. Her pockets are empty, she has nothing to give, but she still says, “Fifteen thousand” Jyn looks at him in the eyes, and with a steady and firm voice, she adds, “and you help me find my father.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian’s trigger finger is tapping on the cup, begging for a smoke. He’s patted his cigarette packet in his breast pocket at least twice since they’d gotten inside. She should have one too, because she feels five digits growing in her brain and overfilling her skull.
> 
> 15,000 dollars, she promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to [garglyswoof](http://archiveofourown.org/users/garglyswoof/pseuds/garglyswoof), my savior, even if she threatens me a lot. (ok you're definitely Frank).

Jyn doesn’t extend her hand. She crosses her arms tighter against her chest, waiting for the blow to come - whether it’s a yes, a no, or a laugh. She had tried to sound threatening, as if he had no other choice than to take her offer. But there’s something so absurd about her proposition, about a girl with blood on her chin, goosebumps, and an itchy dress that still smells of chlorine offering money. 

Maybe it’s the way he’d cleaned up her wound that gave her the hint, or his glances in the rearview mirror, or just his voice, so far from being atonic or malicious. It's probably all of that that made Jyn think that if she extended her hand now, he would take it.

Or maybe it’s just despair making her see signs. 

He scrutinizes her face, her chin where the bandage still lays, and it only makes her stand straighter, raising her chin up. She won’t let him see how tight her belt is, or the price tag on her clothes.

Jyn doesn’t know what to expect, his defeating silence that follows lets her hear the faint clatters of the broken car, the wind whipping the sand and her teeth chattering with cold. 

He’s looking right through her, his lips in a thin line. There are too many heartbeats before he answers. Cassian passes a hand behind his neck and just says, “I’m starving.”

He gets in the car, puts a cigarette between his lips, and opens the passenger door - an invitation, without handcuffs on her wrist. 

Jyn takes it. After the smoke clears, the headlights flash the sight before them, obstructed by the big cactus she drove into. 

Cassian starts the car, the engine spinning a couple of times before the car springs forward, making her teeth smack together and breaking the cactus in half which falls with a bump on the bonnet. Cassian grunts and reverses, pulling back on the road, but in the opposite direction. 

He has his thumb on his lips and his elbow out of the window, tapping on the steering wheel. Jyn doesn’t realize right away that she is looking at him too closely. She doesn’t realize she is inspecting his face, for a clue about what he is thinking about, whether he will just turn around and bring her to Krennic, whether he will call her bluff. 

Because Jyn has 27 dollars in her bank account and maybe $50 in a cookie jar. If only she’d kept the casino chips. If they’re not floating in the motel swimming pool, they’re in the pocket of a happy man. 

She disentangled herself from one problem only to dive right into another. It has brown eyes and its name, apparently, is Cassian. 

It’s the one question she asks in the car, only because the silence is hard to bear. So she grabs his packet left on the dashboard and takes a cigarette, without a  _ please  _ or a  _ thank you.  _ “I don’t even know your name,” Jyn says, looking at the burning tobacco. Maybe the smoke will replace the hostility - this obnoxious third passenger. 

She chooses not to look away when he takes a glance at her and answers, “Cassian.”

It is unfitting. 

And he keeps tapping, as if it could replace the silence. 

Jyn starts looking out the window, at the yellow sand slowly turning to blue as the night falls and cools the air, and opens it to let the smoke out, her hair whipping her burning cheeks. 

Soon, vivid lights appear, like a bullet hole in the view, a saturation of red, blue and green, pouring out of the wound; big signs flashing Diner, and ATM. 

Cassian parks in front of the diner, and takes a second to look at the sagging bumper. He sighs, and Jyn smirks. There are three people inside, truck drivers or simply lost people, drinking watery coffee and eating greasy burgers. They’re best on the highway, apparently, and they’re all named after a different city in Arizona, Jyn notices while reading the long list on the plastic menu. 

The whole place smells like burnt grease and cheap coffee, there are pictures on the walls and Dolly Parton is singing. 

The vinyl-covered booth squeaks when Jyn moves, and it’s only when she does that Cassian - she still thinks it’s unfitting - looks at her. The strange image she conveys, the reddish bandage on her chin and her sequin dress, a plaid shirt on top.

He prefers to stare at his coffee, black, while she prefers to look at the fan in the corner of the room. There are yellow, red and green ribbons tied to it, flowing.

Now there’s grease on her shirt.

(It’s  _ his  _ actually, he threw it to her before coming inside the diner.) 

She bites into the burger like she hasn’t eaten for days - and maybe that’s the case, she can’t remember. 

Cassian’s trigger finger is tapping on the cup, begging for a smoke. He’s patted his cigarette packet in his breast pocket at least twice since they’d gotten inside. She should have one too, because she feels five digits growing in her brain and overfilling her skull. 

15,000 dollars, she promised. 

Cassian taps on his cup and raises his eyes to look at her. He’s going to start asking questions, some she doesn’t have the answer to. “What now?”

“What?” Jyn says, her mouth full. 

“What do we do?” he asks. 

The obvious answer along with the poison she wants to spike her response with are burning her tongue.  _ We find my father _ , she wants to say, but settles for “I don’t know,” because it’s the truth. 

She hasn’t thought about everything, it had been a rushed decision - an opportunity, a way to get out of a complicated situation. She  _ has  _ thought about the blisters on her feet if she’d had to wander in the desert, without water or money.

Cassian pours syrup on his tower of pancakes, “Where do we start?”

Jyn can’t hold back a sigh, her shoulders down in defeat. “I don’t know,” she repeats. 

“The client usually provides some information,” he shrugs, planting his fork in his food, “anything.”

There’s a hint of irritation there that makes Jyn huff. She puts the burger down and licks the sauce off her fingers. He has a steaming cup of coffee near his lips and she almost wants to hit the bottom of the cup so it splatters all over his face. 

_ A client _ now, as if she didn’t feel the ghost of the handcuffs on her wrists anymore. She’s been upgraded apparently: prisoner to client. 

There’s annoyance and impatience in his words, but when Jyn peels off this first layer, she realizes what it could mean. Did Cassian officially agree? 

She is going to make an effort, even if it means she has to walk down memory lane - barefoot on a gravel path. Jyn lifts the bun and takes off the pickles, anything to occupy her fingers and mind. “His name is Galen Erso. He’s a scientist. Narcotics, mostly.”

“Where does he live?”

“Would I need you if I knew that?” 

She could write a list of everything she knew about her father and it wouldn’t be longer than a post-it. There are more burgers on the menu than she has memories of Galen. 

What Jyn remembers is useless. She remembers how he smelled like talk because of his powdered gloves, she could smell it when he brushed her cheek with his thumb. She remembers how he used to say  _ stardust _ . 

What she remembers the most are the lies, when she was twelve, she liked to invent things about her estranged father. He was a spy or an aviator. He was absent but she loved him anyway. She invented stories because she couldn’t remember the truth. 

She sees him nodding and looking at her plate, “You don’t like pickles?” he asks. 

“And you don’t add sugar to your coffee,” she shrugs, before taking a sip from her sweating glass. 

Cassian raises his eyebrows and looks outside, his thumb on his lips. 

It’s when he looks out the window that another thought crosses her mind. Could she run away now? She could spill his coffee on his lap and run, steal his car and leave him behind. 

Would he go after her? Would he be lucky to find her again? 

(And she wants to believe it was luck, not some mistake she’d made.) 

Jyn feels like all the possibilities are dead ends. If they can’t find her father, he’ll probably bring her to Krennic anyway. He has nothing to lose. Just 5000 dollars, money she doesn’t even have. If she runs away, he could always find her again. Nothing to lose but time. 

She’s stuck. Like a shoe on a wad of chewing gum. Another step and it’s still there on your sole. 

Does she even  _ want _ to find her father? The question crosses her mind, but she doesn’t want to think about that when Cassian’s eyes are now back on her like a camera lens. 

Irene, the waitress, cuts her thoughts off with a big smile. She wears pink lipstick, she has eyelashes as long as spider’s legs, rhinestones on her french manicure, and she’s drawn a heart over the letter i on her nametag. 

She looks at Cassian, her smile wider. “Can I get you anything?” She fills his cup with coffee, not even taking a glance at Jyn. “We have great waffles. Our chef’s name is Gerard, he’s half-French, you know,” Irene adds. “Or Canadian.”

Cassian leans back with a squeak of the vinyl, “I’m full,” pats his stomach and smiles, “thanks.”

Jyn could have laughed. He has a gun underneath his jacket, threats on his lips and no sugar in his coffee but still gives an oversweet smile to the waitress. 

He doesn’t have the face of a bad guy, she admits. Back at the casino, she’d taken a second too long. There had been the men in black and him, and clearly, she’d misjudged who was the real opponent back then. 

“And you, sweetie, more iced tea?”

“No, I’m fine.”

Irene leaves and Cassian looks at Jyn once again. He leans forward, his elbows on the table - proximity to be more intimidating or discreet, she doesn’t know - and says, “I need a place to start.”

Jyn lets her shoulders fall. His trigger finger is tapping again, and she knows he doesn’t want to leave her out of sight, even to relieve himself with a cigarette. His misery would be joyful almost, if she wasn’t starting to suffocate in the small diner - the unceasing sound of grease sizzling, the country songs and the neon lights, shaped to write  _ cold drinks, _ buzzing.

“I get postcards. One every year.”

“What do they say?” 

 “I don’t know,” she says, “I never read them.”

Except for the last sentence,  _ I love you Stardust _ , he always writes. She reads the last sentence only because it somehow makes her hate him a little bit more.

Jyn doesn’t care about the pictures, about smiling people and heavenly backgrounds. She doesn’t care from where the greetings are. 

She’d tried to burn them once. With alcohol on her tongue and curses on his name, she’d been ready to throw them into the fire, but something had kept her from doing so. 

“Do you really want to find your father?” Cassian asks. 

Her breath catches in her throat against her will, she’s startled even if the question has been running in her mind ever since she said the big fat numbers. 

Instead of an answer, she says, “I’m starving,” and bites into her burger. 

* * *

They’re waiting, leaning on the car. Cassian can finally smoke his cigarette, to numb his mind. Jyn is leaning against the trunk, kicking dust with her boots.

“Let’s breathe some fresh air,” he’d said in the diner,  _ see where we go from here _ , he’d wanted to add, but Jyn was already out the door. 

He looks around at the endless road. If it’s really a starting point, then might as well begin with a straight line. 

He doesn’t know if he should have accepted the deal. It’s 5k more. And peace of mind. 

There’s something about this girl, her truck driver mouth, her green eyes, and petite frame. The photo hadn’t done her justice - it’s still in the glove box - he hadn’t expected the heavy boots and fists, constantly ready to punch, and her chin that she raises up when he tries to read her face. 

Helping her feels like the right thing to do. And Cassian hasn’t made a lot of right choices in his life. Plus, helping Krennic feels like swallowing stones. 

But does she really want to find her father?

He’s not stupid. She hadn’t sounded desperate when she’d asked him to find her father, on the contrary. There’s hatred, disappointment when she talks about him. Why would she want to find him if she doesn’t even read the letters he sends?

He takes another drag. 

Cassian glances at Jyn, her profile painted blue with the neon lights. She’s fidgeting. Maybe she needs one too, so he hands her the pack of cigarettes, taps the bottom so one comes up.

“Want one?”

Jyn has a frown, she doesn’t look as picturesque as in Vegas, not as innocent as the pictures he still has, maybe it’s the stain of grease on the shirt he’d given her. 

“We’ll have to work together,” Cassian starts, because Jyn’s on the defensive, and maybe she’ll aim for the nose once again. “We should be civilized.”

Jyn huffs, but still reaches out. Cassian lights his Zippo, but instead of bringing the cigarette to the flame, she takes the lighter with a mumbled “thanks.”

When the lights inside the diner go out, Cassian steps on the cigarette butt and says, “Let’s go.”

Jyn flinches, flicks away her cigarette, “Where?” she asks with defiance and a frown, making the question bigger. 

It’s not a starting point. They’re in the middle of the game and Cassian has to choose which direction to take, two straight roads, one leading to Krennic, another to Galen. 

“Far away from Mexico, I guess,” and he opens the door. 

* * *

Jyn appreciates the silence for once. She steals glances at him, always looking for clues - a habit.

He has some too. He taps on the steering wheel and bites his thumb. 

She feels like she’s embarked on an adventure that she has no control over and to get out of it would mean throwing herself out of a driving car - literally. 

Jyn thinks about his question, whether or not she wants to find her father, and she finds out she doesn’t care about the answer. She’d rather take this road willingly than run away and live constantly looking behind her back. 

She’ll tell him to stop sending postcards, that she wants nothing to do with him now. She’ll leave. She doesn’t even know what she’s still doing here in America because her father is not coming back. 

In her grace, Jyn will warn him too, that Krennic, dangerous and resourceful, is after him, for whatever reason. He can’t be left in the dark, not like he left her. 

“I need to warn him,” she says out loud, and the sudden noise feels like a popping balloon. 

Cassian turns his head to look at her briefly. 

“My dad. That’s why I want to find him.”

She hasn’t really answered his question - one with only two answers possible - but she hopes giving him a reason will be enough, because she can’t answer yes to the question, or even no. 

“About Krennic?”

“Yes,” Jyn lets her head fall on the headrest and closes her eyes, lets the wind cool her cheeks, “and then I’ll leave.”

“Where?”

Back home, maybe. She wonders if it has changed. “Should I really say this to a bounty hunter who kidnapped me just a day ago?”

Jyn hears him laugh, it’s enough to make her open her eyes again. It’s more like a huff or a cough, but there’s a tiny smile with it. It’s another popping balloon. 

“That’s nice,” Cassian adds.

Silence falls again, but Jyn knows the miles they’re driving are meaningless if they don’t know where to go. 

They have to figure it out, because soon there’ll be a fork in the road. Unconsciously, she says, “Maybe he’s sent another postcard.” Jyn blames the endless road for her blabbering, it’s an arrow pointing at nothing, a dark purple dot in the horizon, “Maybe there’s even an address on it.”

Cassian looks at her when he says, with a hint of surprise, “That’s a start.”

A start heading towards this mauve nothing in a red car driven by a bounty hunter who doesn’t add sugar to his coffee. A red car full of smoke, with a pair of handcuffs on the backseat, and questions, doubts, that Jyn's piled up in the trunk instead of facing them.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The _Oasis_ , a red neon sign is planted in the middle of nothing, the A is twitching. It’s a truck stop. He turns to park next to three large trucks and sees a cardboard sign hanging on the pole and waving with the burning wind, listing everything that can be found there: food, drinks, toilets, fuel and coffee. It’s calling to him, to the blinking light, to the smell of oil and sand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been so long and I am sorry it's short, I'll try to do my best to update more often.
> 
> and of course, thanks to [garglyswoof](http://archiveofourown.org/users/garglyswoof/pseuds/garglyswoof), for her beta work and for even more than that! thank you!  
> and thanks to [firefeufuego](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefeufuego/pseuds/firefeufuego) for her help and kind words!

Red burning ashes in a styrofoam cup, silhouettes of plains and dry bushes in the darkest mauve, and green digits blinking back at him. Cassian can only see a few meters ahead but it’s the same sight, a seamless pattern. So sometimes, instead of looking at the road, at its long boredom, he looks at the green digits blinking back at him. Small numbers. It’s two in the morning.

Cassian wishes he didn’t know what day it was. He wishes the night could be just that: a moment, filled with mauve, green and red, meaningless. A break. But it’s two in the morning. The morning of the day he would have met up with Krennic.

He would have brought her to him, taken the cash and left, if he wasn’t driving the opposite way.

If he wasn’t driving right into the dark, far away from Mexico, following the big green signs and their big white arrows, leading them to Las Vegas or Los Angeles. If he wasn’t chain-smoking and piling up cigarette butts in a styrofoam cup to keep himself awake and calm on this senseless journey only to retrieve a rectangular piece of cardboard.

If Jyn wasn’t using his shirt like a blanket and refusing to sleep, this stubborn thing.

If he wasn’t taking glances at her lolling head, fighting sleep before she straightens it quickly, as if a big noise keeps waking her up - it’s caution screaming in her ears - so Jyn tries to kill her sleepiness by turning up the radio.

Jackson 5 is on and Cassian puts his hand behind her headrest, his fingers tapping rhythmically. He could swear he sees her smile. Brief and unexpected, it looks almost like a grimace.

Or maybe it’s just a play of light and shadow that makes him see the corner of her mouth quirk up.

So he finds himself, instead of looking at the road or at the green digits, looking at his silent companion. Her face, softer in the dark, so different from the crude lights of the diner or Vegas, younger. She’s facing the window with hair flying out of her bun. Her breathing is even, her face peaceful. But her hands are always in fists, grasping the plaid pattern of his shirt. The sight makes his nose ache again, a memory refusing to fade. The bandage is gone but it’s still red and inflamed; she has a strong uppercut.

He drives on the wrong side of the road until she starts turning her head towards him. Cassian goes back to his side as if he hadn’t crossed the yellow lines.

He tries to focus on the empty landscapes, night blue desert and dusty America.  He bites his thumbnail, only because he’s out of cigarettes.

“It’s a bad habit,” he hears her say, “biting your nails,” she specifies when she sees his frown. “I had to put on some nail polish to stop. You know the kind that tastes really bad,” Jyn adds with a sleepy and monotonous voice.

It’s a detail, almost insignificant, but Cassian lists every reason why she would bite her nails, they’re all written on her file. Dead mother and foster homes. There must have been worse habits. He knows a lot about those.

“Smoking is too. But I don’t have any tips about that,” she adds and falls silent once again, turning her head to the window, shrinking herself as if she can feel his scrutinizing gaze - looking at her wrists and arms - and breaks short the conversation.

They don’t talk. They listen to old hits on the static-filled stereo. Cassian thinks she might have fallen asleep asshe doesn’t make a sound and she’s not moving, but he can’t bring himself to check, too afraid to scare her away.

His hands tighten on the steering wheel, eyes trying to stay focused on the road.

And just like that, it’s 3 AM, and there’s a red sign right ahead.

Jyn suddenly stands straighter, fully awake.

_The Oasis_ , a red neon sign is planted in the middle of nothing, the A is twitching. It’s a truck stop. He turns to park next to three large trucks and sees a cardboard sign hanging on the pole and waving with the burning wind, listing everything that can be found there: food, drinks, toilets, fuel and coffee. It’s calling to him, to the blinking light, to the smell of oil and sand.

Jyn too, she’s buttoning his shirt up to her neck and flies inside as soon as he stops the car, without a glance at him.

Cassian lets himself slump into the seat to take a second or two of rest. He grabs his packet of cigarettes, only to remember that it’s empty, and that his nails are too short now.

He sighs and gets out of the car.

He follows her inside, where the walls are grey and sad, artificial lights on the ceiling make it look like it’s a winter day, cold and bleak despite the desert around. The only colors are from the large red and yellow sign promising three packets of chips for the price of two, and another of a coyote eating an ice cream. Rows of metallic shelves stand in the middle, and Jyn veers towards them with purpose.

Cassian tries to keep an eye on the bobbing head between the aisles as he goes up to the cashier. It’s an old man, with thick black frame glasses and white hair, deep wrinkles. He’s unmoving, eyes fixed under the counter and when Cassian asks him for two packets of cigarettes the man startles, as if he was sleeping with his eyes open.

“Tomato soup? it’s 3 in the morning,” Cassian hears another man say while he’s putting a bill on the counter.

“I need strength.”

He takes a peek, three men are standing by the coffee machine, old baseball caps on their heads.

“That shit ain’t even have tomatoes in it.”

“My wife says that there’s no tomato in ketchup too. That some scientists can recreate the tastes now.”

He grabs the packet and taps the bottom, a cigarette slides up. Cassian puts it between his lips, unlit, and starts looking at the newspapers - they’re still from yesterday -  focusing on the last Hollywood breakup or the next fashion faux pas and letting his mind wander away from Jyn who’s stolen a backpack and is starting to fill it.

“Hey!” one of the truck drivers screams, pointing an accusatory finger.

The cashier wakes up with a start again and raises his head.

Jyn grabs his arm and nods towards the exit, “hurry”, she murmurs, because she’s putting the bag full of nothings on her shoulder without paying for it.

Next thing he knows he’s starting the car hastily, two big men running towards them. Jyn raises her middle finger.

“Do you always steal everything?” he mumbles while turning back on the road. She has been with him for 24 hours, and he’s already been under pursuit twice. It’s a wonder she’s managed to stay under the radar for so long.

Jyn snorts and turns around to watch the men give up. “Only things that are not free.”

She sits back straight and starts emptying the bag. A bag of Swedish fish, lemonade made in Florida, and clothes fall onto her lap along with a pair of sunglasses that she puts on top of her head, the tag hanging on her temple. They’re butterfly-shaped, red with rhinestones on the corners.

“Keep driving,” she says. Her knee bumps into his shoulder as she climbs to the backseat, “and don’t look,” she mutters before putting on the shorts underneath her dress.

He doesn’t look, but Cassian briefly sees her legs in the mirror and he chooses to distract himself with a cigarette. He doesn’t take a peek, but there’s a hint of a shoulder, a strap of a black bra, soon covered by a white t-shirt.

“Thanks for that,” she says suddenly, throwing the plaid shirt on the seat next to him, and Cassian’s eyes are back on the road, an unlit cigarette on his lips.

“Keep it.”

He wouldn’t wear it anyway. He bites back something of a smile when she takes it back with a shrug. Jyn puts it on the backseat before lying down, her head on the balled-up shirt. It’s still dark outside but she puts her sunglasses on, as if she doesn’t want him to see if she has her eyes closed, as if it is a weakness to not look alert for a minute.

“As soon as the sun is up, we’ll stop at a motel and get some rest,” Cassian says, more to himself, to the rearview mirror and the clock on the dashboard, because Jyn mumbles something incomprehensible with sleepy lips.

* * *

Jyn doesn’t dream. She never does. She sees lights, pink, purple and blue, and she hears the motor, an old song and someone humming to it. She is not sleeping, at least she tries not to, because she can’t be vulnerable in the middle of the American desert in the back of his car.

But Jyn opens her eyes to the sound of silence.

“Good, you’re awake,” Cassian says, leaning against the car, an old phone in his hands.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” she mutters, defensive.

He doesn’t answer and hands her a card. “Your key. We’re going to stay for a couple of days. Maybe less.”

With a grunt, Jyn takes her stolen things and shuts the door, looks at the place, its pale yellow walls and green doors, at the small bean shaped swimming pool in the middle of the empty parking lot.

She follows him to the second floor, “We’ll be sleeping here,” Cassian says while opening the door to a small room. There’s a square of lights between the two small beds, and she can see streaks of yellow on the white walls.

“We’re in the same room?” Jyn stays, standing by the door, looking at the old tv and the purple carpet while Cassian throws a big military bag on one of the beds, “I’d rather sleep in the car.”

“Be my guest. But I am not giving you the keys.”

“I already proved I didn’t need them to start your car.”

She hasn’t moved an inch, holding her backpack too tight. Cassian makes himself comfortable, takes off his shoes, and lies down on the first bed. “You’re not running away,” he says with a shrug.

“What makes you so sure?”

There’s a hint of a smile, as if the answer was obvious, “An intuition,” he answers.

Jyn snorts at that. She’s not running away because she’s not sure if he’d let her go if she did. Maybe he would change his mind and bring her to Krennic. He found her once. He can find her twice.

“What about you?”

“What?”

“You could leave me here without a car while you drive away. Not bother with Krennic. Or me.”

“I won’t.”

“Why? What’s in it for you?” She hates the sound of her voice, low and weak, so she closes her mouth shut and clenches her teeth. Jyn tries not to look at his eyes, only because they’re too brown, too dark to hide anything good in them, but she fails.

Cassian doesn’t speak for a second, he’s hesitant, almost, and says, “15k, remember?”

Jyn finally breathes and nods slowly, unconvinced by his answer. Before she can say anything, he adds, “You should sleep and get some rest.”

“I’ll go enjoy the pool first.”

“You have a swimsuit in there?” Cassian asks, pointing at the backpack on her shoulders.

“No.”

* * *

She’s holding her breath underwater, tries to open her eyes but the chlorine burns. And Jyn remembers Vegas, cooling her feet in a swimming pool after running away from Cassian - in vain. She half expects him to be there when she surfaces to tell her that he’s changed his mind, that the original ten thousand is enough and that she is not.

Jyn pushes herself back to the surface and takes a big gulp of air, coughing loudly.

Maybe it’s chlorine in her eyes, or simply tiredness, she can’t see a thing but a shapeless form by the pool fence. “Jyn.” Cassian’s voice.

The sun hits his face, his traits becoming clearer, and he’s squinting his eyes as if he has chlorine in them too. He is looking at her and he lets something fall on the pile of her clothes. She lifts herself out of the water but he’s already walking away, raising a hand as his words trail back to her.

“Do what you want with it.”

On her jeans, his wadded plaid shirt, there’s a brown file with her name on it.


End file.
